Tag: music

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one year on

Yesterday was the first anniversary of the death of Eric Roche. On Tuesday night, TSP and I went to see Nizlopi play at KoKo in Camden, and one of the support acts, Newton Faulkner studied with Eric, and commented after the gig when I mentioned that Eric had been a good friend, ‘I pretty much owe everything to Eric’.

I’ve spent a lot of time this last year thinking about Eric, saddened by his death and by the thought that we’ll never get to play the music we had planned, to do the gigs we’d talked about, to record a duo version of ‘Deep Deep Down’. It’s funny, when he first told me he’d wanted me on it, I thought it was an after thought and as I was there he just said ‘yeah, I wanted you on it’, but quite a few people over the last year have said ‘ah, Steve Lawson, Eric told me about you’ and then mentioned that tune as the one he picked out that he wanted to do with me.

I now do a solo version of it, and as much as I enjoy playing it, it doesn’t sound the way it would if it were both of us…

Anyway, spare a thought for his wife and kids, and what they must be feeling – regrets about missed collaborations are infinitesimally small when compared to the loss of a life partner, parent, child…

And if you haven’t already got Eric’s CDs, head over EricRoche.com and order them, they’re all great.

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it's all about the lovely peoples

This being a musician thing, it’s really all about lovely people. I love playing music, I love being a musician, I love recording and releasing music and I love doing gigs. And the thing I love about all of those the most is that I get to do it in the company of lovely people.

I’ve mentioned before on here that I’m continually delighted to find that the people who come to see me play are by and large the kind of people I’d like to go for a curry with – and fairly regularly do end up friends with them, on more than just an ego-massaging ‘hey how great, you like my tunes’ kind of way. I’ve somehow managed to write music that attracts nice people. This is a good thing.

Likewise the musicians that I spend my life playing with are lovely. Jez and Theo, they of the duo albums on Pillow Mountain Records, are two of my most favouritest people to spend time with. Delightful, friendly, funny, generous people, who also happen to be fabulous musicians.

The amassed hordes of the Recycle Collective are just great – Cleveland, BJ, Orphy, Leo, Andrea, Julie, Seb, Andy, Patrick etc. etc… great people one and all. I’m a lucky man.

Today I spent the day with Evelyn Glennie – genius percussionist, and of course, an utterly delightful person. Evelyn’s always been a very progressive force within classical music, experimenting with improvised music, processed sound and MIDI instruments for years, and I was up showing her more about looping, exploring the possibilities for her percussive set up. With a musician that good, and that open minded, she’s bound to discover all manner of gorgeous music in the midst of the technology, and hopefully we’ll get to do some things together as it progresses. But more than the music, I’m just delighted that once again being a musician has put me in contact with more lovely people. I is feelin’ blessed.

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Recycle-type things across the globe…

Just got an email from the delightful and lovely Doug Lunn – an amazing bassist and human being from Santa Monica, CA. He’s got a gig coming up with guitarist Mike Keneally, and it sounds very Recycle-esque… or rather The RC sounds very ‘Circus Of Values’-esque, as Keneally was clearly doing it first – read this;

“Hello there, MK here — I hope you’re doing well and that 2006 has been OK for you so far. Thanks for reading this!
I want to let you know about some stuff – here’s “stuff fragment” number one:
CIRCUS OF VALUES re-ignites THIS WEEK The first round of Circus of Values was a series of improvised shows I hosted at Dizzy’s in San Diego, back around five years ago. Each one had a different theme and title, and a different group of players. All of the music was invented on the spot. It’s time for another round of this madness. I’m
very happy to be returning to Dizzy’s (a super-cool spot to hear music) for another series of Circus Of Values performances.
I’m very delighted to report that Chad Wackerman (drums) and Doug Lunn (bass) will join me for the first show of the new Circus of Values series; the performance is entitled “Ah Mr. Solid Gasoline.”
Here’s details for y’all:
Mike’s intimate improvisation series
Mike Keneally’s Circus of Values
returns to
Dizzy’s
344 Seventh Avenue
(between J & K, on the edge of San Diego’s East
Village)
San Diego, CA 92101
Thursday, September 7, 2006
8:00 p.m.
Tonight’s episode: “AH MR. SOLID GASOLINE”
Featuring Chad Wackerman and Doug Lunn
Tickets: $15
All ages welcome
Info: 858.270.7467
All attendees will receive a special exclusive concert program with odd art and text by me. Please be an attendee! (Check later in this email for the dates of two more Circus Of Values shows.)”

Sounds very Recycle-ish to me – and such great players! Doug’s a remarkable bassist, and Chad’s, well, Chad; a percussive legend. Definitely one that’s worth the drive if you’re in Southern California

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Steve Irwin's death…

So the big news today pretty much across all the news sources I’ve looked at has been the death of Steve Irwin. And, like a lot of people, TSP and I have been talking about him, his conservation work, how his work as a naturalist contrasted with his ‘crocodile hunter’ image (which never involved hunting them at all, as far as I can see).

I always feel a bit weird about the sadness that surrounds celeb deaths, especially those who haven’t really made much of a dent in your life – I mean, John Peel’s death felt like something major had gone from the lives of an entire generation of British radio listeners and musicians, but Steve Irwin was always a novelty character on UK TV, someone to be giggled at as he hammed up an encounter with some poisonous critter or other.

There’s a deep and genuine sadness for his family – his wife and two small children – it’s always terrible to hear of families that are bereaved. And that’s just it. There are loads of bereaved families every day, there are naturalists and conservationists dying, there are humanitarian workers being killed, peace protesters in the middle east, aid workers in Darfur, good people, unknown, unsung wonderful selfless people who die and leave a devastating hole in their families, but don’t make the news because they weren’t showbiz enough.

This isn’t to take anything away from sadness of Steve Irwin’s death, or to suggest that we should have a TV channel for obituaries of ordinary people. More that we should be aware of our own dispensation towards colourful characters, be they in the media or in our social situations. It’s easy to mourn the death of a star, just as it’s easy to mark any event in the lives of people who make themselves the centre of attention, but it’s harder to see, to recognise the good done by those who don’t do their positive work in the spotlight, who don’t have a catchphrase, or a film about their life, but instead get on with doing their thing. And if we’re not careful we’ll miss them, miss the chances we have to celebrate them, the encourage them and to support their families if they are tragically taken away.

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None More Prog




The Tangent

Originally uploaded by solobasssteve.

Went to Southend to see Theo playing with The Tangent last night. For those of you that don’t know (I’m guessing that’s most of you), The Tangent are a prog rock band, in the old fashioned sense of mini-moogs and obscure time signature changes, too many band members and 22 minute songs. Andy Tillison, who basically IS the Tangent, is a driven man, and I have a huge amount of respect for him, bordering on awe, mixed with bewilderment… That his musical vision requires him to hire six other musicians, write this insanely complex music and play it in little clubs in Southend is a remarkable testament to his tenacity and dedication.

And it is very well played. Despite a number of nasty technical hitches (an electrical spike that shut down all the keyboards and synth stuff), the band played the ridiculously complex music very well indeed, especially considering this isn’t a band that gigs week in week out (three of them are over from Sweden for the gig), and there are moments in the gig when I’m reminded why I loved prog-rock so much in my teens – the complexity, energy, the bizarreness of grooves in 7/8, 11/8 etc – it doesn’t really sound like anything else.

But I also breathed a huge sigh of relief that I’m not destined for the kind of logistical hell that Andy is every time he puts on a gig. My own musical goals in life are scalable to the degree that I could play solo in people’s living rooms for the rest of my music life and be not only fulfilled but probably make a reasonable living doing it.

I’m rarely at the mercy of club sound engineers and sysyems built to make Stones tribute bands sound loud, not 7 progsters sound clear. Even when I add other musicians, there are never any scores to hand round, rehearsals to be hand (except the duo with Julie, and that actually made a nice change, to have things to remember for once!)

My own musical journey is one deeper into collective spontaneous composition – beyond what usually gets described as ‘free improv’ and into something where ‘Is it Good?’ is the question of the hour not ‘Is it Right?’ – it’s what the Recycle Collective is about, it’s what the duos with Theo and BJ and Cleveland are about, it’s where I’m happiest, and where I play best.

So, a salute to Andy Tillison for his remarkable tenacity in the face of unrelenting technical obstacles, and a prayer of thanks that the musical monkey on my own back isn’t quite so demanding.

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National Theatre gig…

In my post-Greenbelt blogging frenzy, I forgot to blog about the NT gig with the lovely Theo. It’s amazing that we keep getting booked there, given that most of the music there is either solo classical guitar, or standards. We seem to get away with playing original spacey ambient loveliness in a straight setting. Still, the audience seem to like it, we like it, so what’s not to love?

Anyway, the gig went really well – it’s always too quiet in there, thanks to the powers that be complaining about the volume, but that aside, it was such a joy to be back playing with Theo – he’s an exceedingly nice bloke, and a fantastic musician and improvisor. It’s a really natural musical hookup. Most of the gig was freshly improvised stuff, with a couple of ‘Open Spaces tunes thrown in’ (Flutter, Bernie and Lovely), a solo tune from me (Behind Every Word) and our duo arrangement of ‘All I Know’ from Theo’s excellent Heart Of The Sun album. All in a most enjoyable gig, with a mix of friends and strangers in the audience, many of whom were most complimentary about the music afterwards. We even sold a pile of CDs, which is fairly rare for a foyer gig…

No doubt we’ll be back there soon.

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more greenbelt thoughts

some top 3s (I don’t think I did anything 5 times at Greenbelt except brush my teeth…)

Top 3 music highlights

  • Spearhead
  • Nizlopi
  • Lleuwen Steffan, Huw Warren and Owen Evans

Top 3 non-music things from the program

  • Jude Simpson’s poetry/comedy gig
  • The Northern Ireland discussion
  • Paul Powell’s Liquid Lunch, with Jude Simpson, Gareth Higgins and Cole Moreton.

Top 3 eateries

  • the new Burrito van (definitely a favourite)
  • Nuts
  • the Burrito place again (didn’t go anywhere else really)

Top 3 things I wished I’d seen

  • Clive Stafford-Smith
  • Alistair McIntosh’s seminars
  • Bill Drummond’s interview
    (fortunately loads of the seminars and talks can be bought here)

Top 3 people I vaguely knew before but got to chat to lots more

  • Gareth Higgins
  • Paul Chambers
  • Joe Fisher

(very nice to make your further acquaintance, gents)

All four of the me-playing moments went really well, so can’t pick favourites there, and everyone I got to play with over the weekend – Julie McKee, Steve Stockman, Simon Jones, Mark..? (fab poet whose surname I didn’t catch, sadly), Huw Warren, Andrea Hazell, Harry Napier, Juliet Turner… were all fab. The poetry and bass stuff (Stocki, Simon Jones (‘is unwell’) and Mark) was a whole lot of abstract fun, and the Recycle gig continued the tradition of Recycle gigs resulting in some of the loveliest music I can imagine. All good, nothing bad.

Greenbelt really is my favourite weekend of the year, and selling lots of CDs and T-shirts is kind of a lovely icing on the cake.

It speaks volumes that I took no photos at all over the weekend – was far too busy having fun to faff with a camera. But there are squillions of great photos on the Greenbelt website.

If you weren’t there, put the last weekend in August in your diary for next year now. It’s magic.

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The finest weekend of the year is over

For another year.

Another magic Greenbelt has come to a close, and we’re home. We drove back late last night, which was pretty hair-raising given how tired we were, but I’ve got a gig today at the National Theatre Foyer with Theo so couldn’t really have stayed over and partied til 4am like so many others…

The last day of GB was a fab one – starting with an organic vegan breakfast, and progressing via a panel discussion on Norther Ireland featuring Assembly members from the DUP and Sinn Fein along with two peace activists, one of whom had had his wife murdered by the IRA. The session was incredible, and what was said was so remarkable, that I doubt they’ll release the tape of the session… A big step forward. Maximum kudos to the most wonderful Gareth Higgins| for chairing the session so well.

After that, I was back into compere mode, to introduce Lleuwen Steffan, Huw Warren and Owen Evans – definitely one of my musical highlights of the festival (that’s their gig, not my introduction, which was good, but hardly a highlight). Amazing music, great performance, very well received.

After that it was full-on Recycle gig logistics – collecting keyboards for Huw to play, getting my gear up to the venue, missing lots of things I really wanted to see… Anyway, got all the gear up to the venue, and set up. Lovely audience comes in along with my co-conspirators.

The gig started with a me-solo set – (Grace and Gratitude, Behind Every Word, MMFSOG, Scott Peck, FRHU, Deep Deep Down and Deeper Still, for those keeping notes), then Julie joined me for some New Standard-ing – Video Killed The Radio Star, I Don’t Wanna Know and Running Up That Hill. Then we went into One Step from the album, and about three quarters of the way through, I gave Huw a nod and he joined in on the baby grand piano that was in the corner of the room, which worked an absolute treat.

After that, he came up to the stage on Keys and laptop, and he Julie and I did a couple of improv things, with them doing a duo version of ‘The Water Is Wide’ in the middle that was exquisite.

All change after that, and Andrea Hazell joined in on voice for our version of Dido’s Lament, which was gorgeous as always.

The wonderful Juliet Turner then got her first taste of Recycling with Harry Napier and I. Most lovely.

And finally, Huw and I played a gentle duet to send the lovely crowd off into the night. All in all, a fab Recycle night. Don’t miss Sept 20th at Darbucka!

Then it was all systems go to get all the stuff packed up before Spearhead started on mainstage. We missed the very beginning of the set, but it must be said that standing in a field at Greenbelt with TSP listening to Spearhead is as close to utter bliss as I can imagine. Really really great way to end a stunning weekend of great music, me-gigs, new friends, old friends, brain food, organic food, camping, chatting, hugging and kissing, laughing, sharing etc. etc. etc. All good nothing bad. Everything was wonderful in this best of all possible worlds.

See you there next year?

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Bob Dylan – closet mullet-rock fan??

So Bob Dylan has said that no good records have been made in the last 20 years. So far, so typical for aging rockers who don’t get modern music.

But wait a minute – twenty years? That takes us back to 1986.

Yes, 1986. One wonders quite what the work of musical genius was that piqued the great Dylan’s interest in 1986. So I did a search of albums released in 1986, and found this Wikipedia entry. Some highlights –

Who Made Who – AC/DC (hardly their best work)
Scoundrel Days – a-ha (not a patch on Hunting High And Low)
Rapture – Anita Baker (a great record, but Dylan’s favourite album of the last 20 years??)
Licensed to Ill – The Beastie Boys (Fight for your right… to be a tragic old curmudgeon?)
Slippery When Wet – Bon Jovi (yeah, his Bobness is definitely down with the ‘Jovi)
Third Stage – Boston (overblown codswallop? oh yes, in spades)
In America EP – Britny Fox (gimme an M, gimme an ‘ullet’…)
Solitude/Solitaire – Peter Cetera (I am a man who with fight for your honour… my arse)
Night Songs – Cinderella (debut) (uh-huh)
Constrictor – Alice Cooper (not so much billion dollar babies as £2.56 worth of teenage nonsense)
From Luxury to Heartache – Culture Club (Bob’s a spender of the pink pound?)
Into The Light – Chris de Burgh (the Lady In Red… no, please, stop)
Notorious – Duran Duran (another great record I’d never have associated with Mr Grumpy)
Emerson, Lake and Powell – Emerson, Lake and Powell (WTF?)
Wonderland – Erasure (pink pound pt II)
The Final Countdown – Europe (maybe Bob didn’t realise that Joey Tempest was a guy?)
August – Eric Clapton (Clapton at his best? Not. Even. Close.)
Whispering Jack – John Farnham (You’re the Voice. Not any more you’re not.)
The Divine Punishment – Diamanda Galás (yup, another certain Dylan fave).
Invisible Touch – Genesis (ewwwww)
Shot in the Dark – Great White (ha-ha!!)
Somewhere in Time – Iron Maiden (Somwhere.. in the mid 80s)
Rendez-Vous – Jean-Michel Jarre (yeah, this is clearly the one bob had in mind)
Control – Janet Jackson (What has Bob done for you lately?)
Psychocandy – The Jesus and Mary Chain (Yay!)
Raised On Radio – Journey (see Boston entry)
Turbo – Judas Priest (how did we not know Rob Halford was gay?)
Trilogy – Yngwie Malmsteen (wheeeeedly wheeeeeedly)
Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying? – Megadeth (chugachug)

…and so on.

Bob, 86 was not even close to being a year of great albums. Try again.

What a tool.

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Greenbelt begins…

Ah, Greenbelt – finest weekend of the year. Many lovely people, much great music and endless mind-expanding seminars and discussions. All good, nothing bad.

It starts today, but I arrived yesterday, and the lack of panic over trying to get on site, getting tents set up, gear delivered to venues etc. is just wonderful. All my gear is in the venue for the first bit of playing tonight, and all I’ve got to do for today is put up a few posters round the site letting lovely peoples know where I’m playing over the weekend.

Weather is magic too :o)

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